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L.A. Noire is an extraordinary piece of work that is as much interactive cinema at times as it is a video game. The now defunct Team Bondi and Rockstar have created a game that uses groundbreaking MotionScan technology to create characters that are so alive with detail that you can see every little animation in their faces. It is 1947 and you will take on the role of Cole Phelps in the LAPD and solve cases in a faithfully recreated downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood. The action, story, and pacing are all methodical. You won’t be running and gunning anyone and everyone down like you could in Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption. You’re a good cop stuck in a seedy, corrupted city. Therefore, you are not given choices for good and evil. You will find clues, interview people, judge their answers in questioning and occasionally get into car chases or firefights. L.A. Noire is open-world sandbox, but there are restrictions. Every character is a unique and individually acted by people you may even recognize from television or movies. You will have to have some patience and a little appreciation for the time period. It is the story and your detective work that drives this game.

Street Fighter III has always been an enigma in the history of Street Fighter. Ken and Ryu were the only returning cast from Street Fighter II (or Alpha for that matter). Double Impact and Third Strike added Chun Li and Akuma, most likely to bring back some of the alienated fringe players who had no returning favorites. Many of the new characters were extremely bizarre even when compared to the likes of Blanka and Dhalsim. Gameplay was revamped, making Street Fighter III a more hardcore, less newbie friendly game. It saw home releases on a meagerly supported Dreamcast system and in the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection years later, none of which were arcade perfect. Street Fighter III: Third Strike is still considered by hardcore fans to be the best competition Street Fighter ever based on its depth and level of skill needed to excel. So it is now, a whole new generation are exposed to the twelve year old Third Strike and an older generation get to relive the magic in Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

I am in the processing of setting up new digs on the new domain. The page will get a nice little facelift. Also this is the busiest time of the year at work for me. So, stay tuned, there will be much new goodness on the new site.

Guardian.co.uk has one of the first Xenoblade Chronicles Reviews for the European release. Bad news for us Americans, it’s really good.

The power both to see the future and to change it is the seductive concept at the heart of this Japanese role-playing game, translated by Nintendo for European markets but not American – much to the consternation of the latter. Their ire is understandable, as in the twilight hours of the Wii‘s life this is a game of rare quality and depth, a title that revitalises a genre whose resistance to change was seeing it slowly slide towards irrelevance in the eyes of western gamers.

ChubbyBoyFilms’ story of Balrog, my favorite character from Street Fighter IV.

I wasn’t exactly impressed with the story as much as the production value for this type of thing. Worth a watch, if for nothing else to see why their names got changed from the Japanese Street Fighter II.